The Unreality of our Reality

Last month I was a happy man: McDonald’s McRib had returned to the menu.   I’m not usually a big McDonald’s fan (though don’t get me started on their chocolate shakes), but the McRib is a perfect combination of BBQ sauce, pickles, and ‘rib.’ 

Unfortunately I just did a bit of quick research.  McDonalds packs 70 ingredients into my beloved McRib…and one of them isn’t rib meat (it’s actually restructured meat product, including pig bits like tripe, heart, and scalded stomach - YUM)!  McDonalds did their market research…took some random flavors and chemicals (my favorite is azodicarbonamide)…and packaged it all into a meal engineered just for my taste buds!  Even though I’m a good cook, I know that I couldn’t possibly recreate the McRib at home in my kitchen. 

McDonalds has done their homework…they know what I want!  They work to find ways of giving it to me, and are not averse to ‘tweaking’ what God has created a bit to make it happen.

The beauty/fashion/advertising world shares that belief!  Everywhere we look we see ‘perfect’ bodies.  Magazine ads…Sports Illustrated and the swimsuit issue…TV shows…movies…perfection abounds.  We see people with perfect skin, perfect hair, and perfect teeth.  The men look suave and have muscles that bulge.  Women have bodies that would make Barbie turn green with envy. 

McDonalds uses chemicals and random ingredients to give us what we want.  Modeling uses the wonders of make-up, lighting, and (most importantly), Photoshop! 

Take this image of Jessica Alba.  The one on the left is the original – she’s a very pretty woman!  The one on the right has been ‘tweaked’ to give us what we want to see.  Some of the changes are subtle.  Her hair is more vibrant…her eyes sparkle…her lips a deeper red.  No big deal.  But look a little closer.   Her waist has been trimmed down…her hips changed shape…her legs slimmed …her bust grew. Ah, the wonders of the computer.  The end result is not Jessica Alba…it’s a body that even she could only dream of.

From the time that we were little children we saw these images and thought, “I could never look like that.”  Do you want to know the truth?  Nobody does.  Corporate America is giving us what we want to see, not what God created.  Even the most beautiful women and handsome men don’t look like they do on TV or in magazine.  Someone behind the scenes changed their bodies to become more ‘desirable.’

Supermodel Cindy Crawford said it well a few years back when she commented, “I wish I looked like Cindy Crawford.”  She knew what she looked like when she looked in the mirror every morning.  She knew what she looked like on the cover of a magazine.  They did not look the same!  Isn’t it ironic: God looks at Cindy Crawford (one of God’s good creations) and God says, “It is good.”  Someone with a computer and a pile of marketing research looks at Cindy Crawford and says, “It’s not good enough.  We need to change a few things.”

How can we be content with the body that God has given us when we’re constantly faced with such unrealistic expectations?  It forces us to do whatever we can to ‘fudge’ the truth about ourselves (make-up, push-up bras, slimming girdles, hair coloring, hair implants, etc).  God looks at you (and me) and says, “I made that.  It is good.”   Do you look in the mirror and think, “It’s not good enough.  I need to change a few things?”

When it comes to your view of your own body, who do you believe: God ... or some corporate executive armed with market research?